Population: Young Adults

Young People in Foster Care

MDRC evaluates programs that support young people who have experience in the foster care system in achieving their goals for school and work and making the transition to independent adulthood.

The Latest
Brief

Effectiveness of Pretrial Special Conditions

Many jurisdictions use electronic monitoring (the use of electronic devices to monitor people’s locations) and sobriety monitoring (drug and alcohol testing) as alternatives to pretrial detention. Drawing on nonexperimental analyses, this brief reports that neither form of monitoring improves court appearance rates or the avoidance of new arrests.

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Brief

Effectiveness of Varying Intensities of Pretrial Supervision

In place of bail, many jurisdictions are instead releasing people awaiting trial with varying levels of supervision in an effort to ensure that they appear in court and avoid new arrests. This brief compares the relative effectiveness of different intensities of pretrial supervision.

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Key Documents
Report

Building a Learning Agenda Around Disconnected Youth

Built on a research review and consultation with youth policy experts, this paper makes the case for developing a menu of approaches for the heterogeneous population of disconnected youth, building knowledge about mature programs (to better understand whether they work, for whom, and why), and creating new programs that address areas of unmet need. This framework may be particularly relevant for the Administration’s newly proposed Youth Innovation Fund.

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Brief

After Foster Care and Juvenile Justice

A Preview of the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation

This brief covers one of the largest and most rigorous evaluations of services for youth who are aging out of the foster care and juvenile justice systems. It explains the scope of the problem, summarizes the policy context, describes the program and study sample, and offers preliminary observations from the evaluation.

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Report

Striving for Independence

Two-Year Impact Findings from the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation

This study tested a program that offers individualized services to young people who are making the transition from foster care or juvenile justice custody to independent living. The program had modest, positive effects on earnings, housing stability, and economic well-being and improved some health and safety outcomes.

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